First time testing the system to simulate a power out. If you want to support this channel, please do here: / ruralleafowner (If you dont then no need to click the link and no worry!)
2 things to note, potentially related. 1. It appears that the Zappi is on a seperate distribution board not linked to the EPS supply from the larger 1st battery. 2. The secondary smaller battery MAY not have its EPS tied into the rest of the system. It will still show power as it’s running islanded, to itself. It could potentially be that you can’t actually have more than one battery/inverter running at one time. I’m not familiar with your exact system but so have heard of systems in the past set so that only the primary battery operated during a loss of grid. (Tech poodle with 3x powerwalls on 3 phase Afik) We’ve got a Givenergy system and have EPS as an option but not wired. I might have a manual changeover switch installed,but we never have power outages here, and when we do it’s about 30mins at most. It wouldn’t see us through the zombie apocalypse with just an 8.2kWh battery & 2.4kW battery discharge anyway. Nice to see the update. You can’t get away with this kind of ubergeek test when the brood is around 😅
It's probably the way it's wired up. Hybrid inverters have a physical EPS output that the inverter protects. That output has to be connected to a circuit. One of the hybrid inverters has the house on the EPS either directly or (more normally for power limit reasons on the inverter) via an automatic transfer switch, but the other EPS output probably isn't wired in. If you have a lighting and freezer/fridge circuit you could get an electrician to connect that up for you, to split the loads across the inverters but it may not be really worth it.
Just found your channel it was one of the recommendations as I've been watching quite a bit with a view to installing batteries and solar in due course so lot of it is still new to me. The day job is networking I would recommend you put your router, home assistant etc on a UPS for the little cost but to also do away with the powerline ethernet adapters/wifi repeater and install a hardwire and mini switch to that equipment if possible plus UPS the two wireless devices on the battery on the floor (missed the name and cannot find the bit in the video). Will be watching other videos in due course, my initial plan was to go electric vehicle but think I can actually make more of a saving converting the house first but time will tell.
The distance to where the batteries are is just to far currently to hard wire it…its optimum but will be very time consuming and expensive for the route it would need to take sadly!
Great video thanks, the fox stuff is very iffy but good people mite get you sorted,have you tried the overnight switch to feed in not self use we use next to none grid energy compared with 100-150 watts overnight. And i use this trick in the evening too or on crap solar winter days when pulling from the battery so you dont have the grid few watts the ihd is on 0 watts high 90s % of the time not the usual 10-20 watts
What a treat to watch, thanks for your effort. On the subject of your Zappi not working when off grid, it looks like your Zappi is only powered from the grid, not connected to your EPS circuits. In the consumer unit where you switched off and on the grid supply there is a 40 Amp RCBO, could that be the Zappi feed? That circuit is not labelled - sloppy and non-compliant electrician! Alternatively, EV charger installers love to wire their stuff from the meter cupboard. It is also possible that your Zappi supply comes from there, which would almost certainly put it outside your EPS circuits.
On your second inverter EPS output connector is not connected (second connector from right to left on the first inverter) that the reason for the second inverter not discharging.
I am no expert, but.... When the mains is on, the inverters have to run slightly ahead of the mains waveform in order to send power into the grid. When you have no mains (and one system), the inverter goes onto self-oscillate mode and have no external reference. With two inverters, can you sync perfectly? I doubt it, so one has to be in charge. That may not be a soft option. If not, then one will try to sync power ahead of the other and you will be trying to send power backwards up an inverter so that does not sound good. When the main one goes below 10% the second one should take over which may explain your coming and going effect and the minor loss of battery on the secondary as it took a few short duty cycles.
Very interesting observations, in my system I never bothered to have EPS fitted (system is in the loft and running the extra earth and separate circuits would be a nightmare). Do you have a lot of power cuts? Odd behaviour from the 2nd inverter if they are exactly the same. Looking at the CU and the labelling it's very difficult to work out how it's connected to the CU! Hopefully you can get it sorted.
A quick WAG I wonder if the two battery packs need to be configured as Master and Slave. If both have identical settings then both maybe set as Master or both as Slave which wouldn't work properly.
It seems that your smaller battery system isn’t connected to the rest of the system. The 95% vs 36% (when you boiled the kettle) seems to suggest that it’s not powering the house at all. I wonder if it needed the mains input before it would go EPS mode. Odd behaviour though.
We had a planned outage this week and I realised that the Zappi can’t auto track the solar production due to the missing grid CT data, leaving fast charge the only option. At least the Zappi can be manually configured to reduce the max charge rate in fast mode.
Good to shake down the system thats for sure. Number 1 priority for those with these systems to do the shake down and sort issues whilst in a position to do so, rather then finding out when its to late!
Whys that? (If you are referring to all these niggles its all down to your installer…and mine went bust (1st4solar) so left with some guess work for setup).
